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News of Leren City's fall quickly arrived, and naturally, this outcome was no surprise. Even before Yan Yuan was dispatched to track the enemy, the next battle plan had already been drawn up. For such a disorganized army, controlled solely by the leader's personal charisma, the simplest strategy was to "capture the leader first," or, in modern terms, a "decapitation operation."
This is Cheng Xi's greatest area of expertise, and one of the reasons she carefully cultivates the "elite" in the gang. Determine the location of the enemy leader, explore the terrain based on information from all sides, and then use external information to confuse the enemy, paralyzing them and then killing them with a single strike.
The operation went smoothly, and the results were quite encouraging. With this, the three conquered cities were completely under the control of the Red Flag Gang. Without a leader, the fleeing refugees would eventually choose to move to places where survival was easier. As for those who still had ambitions, as long as they had their minds, they would not continue to fight the Red Flag Gang on their territory.
The only problem may be that the territory is expanding too fast. Mr. Tian will have a headache again, right?
However, once they entered Leren City, their smug pride in having conquered the enemy without a fight vanished completely. In just a few days, this city, breached twice, had already revealed itself in a state of ruin and decay. Red gates were stained with blood, straw houses collapsed, and corpses lay everywhere, young and old, men and women, many of them killed in horrific ways. Even the remaining homes in the city were completely silent, as if every living thing had hushed its lips, fearing that crying would attract more thugs.
Walking silently through the streets, past shops that were engulfed in flames and still had a faint smell of burning, Cheng Xi arrived in front of the blood-soaked government office. However, he did not go inside. Instead, he said, "Capture all the leaders, build a high platform in front of the surrendered barracks, and then find some civilians in the city."
Zhong Daliang shuddered and whispered, "Boss, these people all volunteered to join us..."
Even he could sense the leader's wrath, a chilling, chilling rage. But if they took advantage of the situation to kill the surrendered, wouldn't that deter others from joining them? In future attacks against the enemy, they'd likely face even more intense counterattacks, and it would be their fellow gang members who would suffer the most.
Cheng Xi looked over coldly and asked, "Have you forgotten the corpses hanging on the bow of my ship?"
Zhong Daliang shuddered, involuntarily clenching his buttocks. The Red Flag Gang's rules prohibited raping women. Those found guilty would be hanged in public, their bodies dangling from the bow of the ship until the ropes broke and the air dried. No matter how powerful the Red Flag Gang grew, this rule remained unchanged; it had become military discipline.
Of course he didn't dare to forget it, but if he used this to ask the army to rebel, he was afraid that those who surrendered would rebel again in an instant! But at this moment, Zhong Daliang really didn't dare to say a word of "no", and could only watch those personal soldiers take the order and leave.
An hour later, a high platform was erected in front of the surrendered soldiers' camp, and many of the hiding civilians were found and gathered in front of the platform. The bodies that had been carefully moved out and stacked together were also there. These were certainly not the young men who died in battle, but mostly women and the elderly, and even babies over a month old.
When all the bodies were piled together, the originally restless and chaotic camp of surrendered soldiers gradually became silent. These were not just one or two, but hundreds of thousands of elderly, weak, women, and children who had clearly died in a violent accident. When the numbers were overwhelming, fear naturally arose.
Those who were dragged out were trembling, some unable to stand, and could only cover their mouths with their hands. No one could tell if there were any relatives among the corpses.
This scene was truly breathtaking, making many of the surrendered soldiers restless and filled with fear. Amidst the chaos and silence, a woman in a red dress ascended the platform.
Glancing over the dense crowd below, Cheng Xi spoke, "You are all common people who suffered from the flood and lost your land. You were all bullied by the rich and unkind, and exploited by corrupt officials. So you fled, you rebelled. You followed Marshal Lu to kill officials and attack cities, robbing the rich to help the poor. You wanted to make a living in these troubled times. This is naturally fair and just. But look at these corpses, look at these elderly, weak, women and children who died tragically. What do they owe you?"
When a person stands on a high platform in the wild, no matter how loud his voice is, it cannot be heard very far. However, the personal soldiers standing beside Cheng Xi repeated her words word for word. One person spread it to ten people, ten people spread it to a hundred people, and by the last sentence, almost hundreds of people roared out.
It wasn't the voice of a single person, nor was it the anger of a single individual. The successive victories of the past few days, the easy crushing of the enemy, had truly instilled arrogance in these Red Banner soldiers. But now, corpses lay before them, the bodies of innocent people.
Many of them had experienced war and seen pirates. Among them were countless storytellers, including those Taoist children from the general's temple, who repeatedly expounded on the principles of benevolence, righteousness, and virtue, the very foundations of their military service. Before every battle, the generals would give them instructions, telling them why they were fighting and for whom.
Now, they had dispatched troops to protect the Red Banner Army's retreat and to quickly eliminate the rebels. These words, however, were no more moving than the bodies of innocent people. Why did they have to eliminate the rebels? Because if they didn't, someone would destroy their homes and kill their loved ones. Who would want to be a beast if they could be human?
The morale that had been slightly weakened before solidified at this moment, turning into a raging rage and murderous intent. Even though they were much smaller in number, even though they had just captured the city, the surrendered soldiers were trembling like sieves, afraid to speak.
Cheng Xi didn't need these people to say anything. His cold eyes swept across the crowd: "All those who instigated your indiscriminate killing should die."
After these words, dozens of bound surrendered generals, along with their trusted associates, were dragged up. An hour was enough time to uncover a great deal, and the moment they had just surrendered the city and felt they had achieved something was also the time when they were most vulnerable to losing their guard. Therefore, Cheng Xi thoroughly interrogated them and singled out the bad apples.
Being in the midst of a chaotic army, it's easy to be swept along, but failing to control your men and letting them run wild are two completely different things. And whether or not they were indiscriminately killing people during their looting, or even those who were completely devoid of humanity, it wasn't difficult to catch them. After all, these rebels were new to the rebellion, not seasoned soldiers and bandits, and only a few were hopeless.
When the bodyguards shouted "All of you shall die", the swords and axes also fell down, more than a dozen heads rolled on the ground, and the splattered blood even fell on the red skirt.
Cheng Xi's expression didn't change at all. She just stared at the crowd below the stage: "The Red Flag Gang will give you land and station troops in Leren. In the future, you can fight for your lives, fight to protect your homes, and fight for glory and merit, but you can no longer kill people wantonly and take lives for fun. If you violate the gang rules, you will be killed without mercy!"
The unanimous cry of "Kill without mercy" caused many to bow their heads, while others raised theirs. Some seemed to wake from a dream, while others shuddered with tears. Even the Great Gan Dynasty had its principles and laws, but could anyone so easily raise a butcher's knife and treat human life as nothing?
Now that the leaders have been killed and rules have been set for them, can they finally wake up from this nightmare? Being able to live a peaceful life as a commoner farming the land again is not better than others, right?
The surviving civilians in the city burst into tears. They hadn't expected the black-clad men who had occupied the city to avenge them, and they hadn't expected the woman in the red dress to say such words. They didn't ask for the dead to be resurrected, they just wanted justice to be done for them. That was all.
Looking at the Red Flag Army soldiers, their faces brimming with rage, and then at the civilians kneeling and kowtowed in gratitude, Zhong Daliang breathed a sigh of relief. When he first joined the Red Flag Gang, he'd heard countless stories like this. He'd even followed his father and witnessed the leader's methods of rallying support through speeches. Now, she wasn't alone. She had so many people standing behind her, so many soldiers who could voice their true feelings. This was truly the power of people.
I am still too young. I should learn more from my father, be careful in what I say and do, and be a competent subordinate.
With this example of killing a chicken to scare the monkey, Leren City finally relaxed its grip. The city's citizens were no longer gloomy, and the refugees obeyed orders, splitting into teams and implementing collective punishment. Of course, those with ill intentions would still be eliminated through various channels. Those who had managed to pass the political review and finally survived were even more trembling with fear, determined to buy their lives for the Red Flag Gang.
All that remained was to sort out the household registers and fields, relocate the refugees, and find enough food and seeds, just as they had done in Lianshao City. Unfortunately, the situation here was even worse, and the martial law would likely last much longer. Fortunately, the refugees who had fled were leaderless, so there wouldn't be much more chaos later.
Unexpectedly, before Yan Yuan, who had sent troops to recapture Baoxiong City, could send back the news, a young man in official uniform ran up to Cheng Xi and said that he wanted to surrender the city on behalf of the officials and people of Lin County.
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